MANILA – The Philippine men’s football team’s historic run in the 2019 AFC Asian Cup came to an end after suffering a 1-3 loss to Kyrgyzstan on Wednesday night at the Rashid Stadium in Dubai, United Arab Emirates.
Vitalij Lux had a superb outing to finish with hat trick for the Kyrgyzstan, which has locked in at third place in the Group C standings with three points behind the South Korea and China.
Even with the victory, Kyrgyzstan is not yet assured of reaching the round-of-16 of the competition as it has to wait for the outcome of the matches in the other groups, which is being played on Thursday night.
Kyrgyzstan were the aggressors early in the match with Lux having two early misses before finally converting one at the 24th minute on a sweetly struck side foot from a cross by Akhlidin Israilov.
Kyrgyzstan continued to pound on the erratic Azkals as he was able to double the advantage at the 51st minute as he buried the ball into the top corner from Bekzhan Sagynbaev’s pass.
The Azkals had a chance to cut into the deficit but Javier Patino misfired his attempt. Luz then completed his hat trick with another conversion in the 77th minute from close range.
The Azkals, however, managed to pull one back three minutes later with team captain Stephan Schrock hitting a long range free kick past the defense of the Kyrgyzstan keeper.
Despite the exit, the Sven Goran Eriksson-mentored Azkals were still upbeat with their participation in the AFC Asian Cup, which was the national men’s football team’s first time.
“I think we showed the people (in Dubai), in front of the television that this country (Philippines) can play football, because I think we did a lot of good things,” Eriksson said./PN
